Tom Douglas

Boar Ribs and a Pint by Tiffany Hankins, Lola Server

What do you do when you have a reputation as a vegetarian to uphold but also have a strong curiosity about an exotic meat dish? Well, my solution was to invite a friend to meet me at the Lola bar so that he could finish what I couldn’t handle and then claim “research” to anyone who saw me order the wild boar ribs.  Wild boar, really? A vegetarian for nine years who swings with fish, I was a little worried about this experiment.  “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” a great president once said….so as soon as my back up eater arrived we ordered a pint of the Maritime Pacific Brewing Co.’s Maybock and the wild boar baby back rib special.  The Maybock gets a really dreamy caramelly sweetness from the fusion of three malts and gets really lively with the addition of Mt. Hoods hops.  The combo is sweet and crisp, and when the ribs arrived we were astonished at the compliments the pairing gave off.  The beer and honey caramelized boar ribs dusted with fennel pollen had a crispy caramelized glaze and tender strands of flesh that I savored as they dripped from the bone.

The wild in wild boar is a little bit of a stretch.  According to an old PI archived news article (the legacy lives on!), they are an imported breed that is farmed and then set free on giant estates where they are trapped or hunted.  They pose quite a challenge according the websites that advertise hunting packages in the “wilds” of East Texas.  But seriously, restaurants generally get their boars from razorbacks allowed to forage for non-cultivated food on these large estates so they do have a semblance of a free life.

All said and licked off the bone, the boar ribs were quite a treat and paired amazingly with the beer, and for seven bucks I could have eaten a second set if that wouldn’t have been way too carnivorous of me.

May 19th, 2009